“You fucking bitch!” he yelled. “You shot me.”
I stopped circling him and aimed for his other foot, in my line because he’d stilled and was tending to the bleeding one. The gunshot was nostalgia, my childhood lullaby.
“Oops, look, I did it again,” I said while he screamed. “That was for the kids.” I bent down, yanking his head back by clutching his greasy hair.
Tears and snot ran down his face.
“Please,” he cried.
“Begging? Already?” I tutted. “A man like you should be much stronger than that. But then again, you like to be the one hurting women, not the other way around. Like Chloe Thompson, walking home from a double shift at the hospital. Missed the bus, so she risked the walk because I guess she was dog tired and wanted to get home to bed instead of waiting twenty minutes for another one.” I yanked my knife from my boot. “Now, a woman in any neighborhood should be able to walk home after caring for sick people all day. She should be able to go straight there, no trouble, since she gave the world no trouble herself and did nothing to deserve it.” I paused. “In a perfect world, at least.”
I ran the tip of my knife down his neck, drawing blood as I did so. “This is not a perfect world. So she didn’t make it home. Some wannabe gangbanger tough guy comes across her. Knocks her out, drags her to an alley and rapes her.” I pushed the knife deeper and he cried inconsolably. “Brutally,” I hissed. “Now she’s in the hospital, being nursed by people just like her. But now they’re not like her, are they? You made sure of that. You made sure she’d take your despicable actions and place them on her soul. The one that holds not an ounce of blame for this shit. But she’ll carry it. She’ll fight demons never meant for her. Maybe she’ll win. Maybe she won’t. Maybe her life is ruined because of one fucking night. Just because there’re assholes like you in the world who can ruin a woman’s night, her life, when she was just trying to get home.”
I had risen to somewhat of a screech by the end, and my knife had found its home. Right between Jerome’s legs.
The wet sound of blood gurgling around steel should’ve made me sick. It probably meant something about my own soul that it didn’t.
I pushed the dead weight of his body back as I retrieved my knife. I shoved it back in my boot and looked down, satisfied with the blood pooling at my feet.
“Maybe you’ll survive this,” I said. “Maybe you won’t.” I stepped over him toward the door. “And it’s all because a woman missed her bus one night and decided to walk home. Because of you. Remember that, asshole.”
And then I was gone.
I shoved my leather gloves in my pocket. I didn’t really need them. If he did survive, he wasn’t likely going to report the attack to the cops because it would mean them investigating his house, the scene. His house that doubled as a meth lab.
And if he died, the police would eventually find and investigate the scene. But it was corrupted enough with all the comings and goings that they would find dozens of suspects. I wouldn’t be on the list, considering I didn’t know him from Adam and didn’t run with those types of crowds.
Plus, my prints didn’t even exist in the system. Wire took care of that.
It was hard and very fucking risky, but he did it for me. He couldn’t do it for everyone because the chances of getting caught and traced were higher. Plus, almost everyone had a record a mile long. Kind of hard to delete that shit from the system.
I had no record.
Not because I didn’t commit any crimes, but because I’d never been arrested.
Because of Luke.
I walked out the door, not at all perturbed by the gunshot that rang out in the night, or the stares of the group of youths across the street.
Even with this shit clogging my mind, I still thought of him.
It was because I was thinking of him that I was caught off guard as I cut through the alley where my car was parked. I may have had zero to none chances of getting caught, but that didn’t mean I was about to tempt fate by parking my car right outside the scene.
Cutting through the alley, I didn’t think of the lingering stares of the boys as I passed, nor the roughness of the neighborhood or the potential for Jerome’s boys to find him and then go looking for me.
Each and every one of those things could result in death or at the very least grievous bodily harm for me.
I didn’t think of them.
I thought of Luke.
And I still thought of him as someone snatched my shoulders roughly and slammed me against the wall of the alley. The grip my attacker had on my shoulders was viselike and made it unable for me to grab my gun. I tried to kick out my legs, but his entire body pinned me.
“Are you fucking insane?” a deep and murderous voice hissed.
My gaze snapped upward, only then focusing on my attacker’s face.
Luke’s face.
“Of course I am,” I snapped, only relaxing slightly. My heart was still thundering, despite the fact that I wasn’t in any danger. Bodily, at least. “What does that have to do with you attacking me in a fucking alley?”
His glare was unyielding, angry, and foreign. It scared me for a moment, like looking into the face that you thought you knew so well, the man you’d etched into your soul, and finding a stranger.
“Are you serious, Rosie?” he growled. “You just waltzed around one of the most dangerous and crime-ridden areas of LA, into the house of one of the most deranged characters in this neighborhood, assaulted, tortured and maybe fucking killed him, and you’re the one who’s wondering why you’re getting attacked in an alley?” he hissed.
His grip, which was before firm but harmless, was bordering on painful as his anger crept upward. Again, the stranger reappeared, and I wondered if the stranger was Luke now.
“Have you been following me?” I accused.
“Not exactly,” another accented and familiar voice cut in.
My head snapped sideways to see Keltan’s attractive face emerge from the shadows.
Luke’s grip slackened and I stepped away from him. “What are you talking about?” I demanded, pointing all my energy at Keltan.
He leaned on the wall, casually. The man was so laid-back all the fucking time it was a miracle he stayed upright. Or pretended to be. In the times I’d hung out with him and Lucy, which was as often as possible, that mask slipped and you saw the man underneath. The man bracing for the next fucking horror.
He didn’t look like he was bracing now; he looked like he was having fun. “Well, I may not be a native, haven’t been here long, but I’m good at makin’ friends.” He winked. “Think it’s the accent. You Yanks find us Kiwis exotic, of all things. Mad, but it works for me.” He shrugged his impressive shoulders. “My friends have been filling me in on this new woman on the block, causing trouble for the scum of the underworld. Naturally, I thought of you. And I wasn’t exactly tickled pink to find out I was right once I put Duke on you. Wasn’t surprised, though. He was impressed, by the way. Taking down three armed men? Even some of my guys couldn’t do that without at least a shiner to show for it.”
“Yeah, well girls do it better,” I snapped. “And it sounds like your employees must be lacking.” I gave a pointed look to Luke, even though he was anything but lacking.